


All Doors Are Open To the Believer

by downjune



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, First Time, Fishing, Nile Freeman Week, That Lake Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26433316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: orA Love Letter from one, Andromache of Scythia, to Nile Freeman, in the form of a leaky boat, a fugly fish, and a decided lack of indoor plumbing.“Didn’t figure you for vain,” Nile said from behind her, appearing in the mirror’s reflection.“I didn’t think I was,” Andy answered. “Turns out I was just immortal.”
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman
Comments: 15
Kudos: 146





	All Doors Are Open To the Believer

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nile Freeman Week over on Tumblr! It's my first time writing in this fandom and I am in <3333 with Andy and Nile.

The patches of grey hair at her temples finally did it. Andy touched the silver, stark against the rest of her hair, and turned her head from side to side to get a look in the mirror. The closer she got to the glass, the more obvious the crow’s feet around her eyes became. Fuck, she’d probably need reading glasses before too long. Book would never let her live that one down. Not that she was seeing much of Book these days.

Not that she had any intention of sticking to that hundred-years business, either. When your life expectancy abruptly went from millennia-maybe to another-few-decades-if-you’re-lucky, the feuds of your brothers began to look pretty fucking foolish.

There was irony in there somewhere. Booker would get it.

“Didn’t figure you for vain,” Nile said from behind her, appearing in the mirror’s reflection.

“I didn’t think I was,” Andy answered. “Turns out I was just immortal.” She turned around and leaned back against the sink, regarding Nile where she stood, dressed in the loose-fitting tank top and boxer shorts she slept in. They’d been on the road for months and at the cabin for just over a week and it seemed the remoteness of the Manitoba wilderness had finally gotten her to relax enough to sleep out of her clothes. Her hair was wrapped in a silk scarf and her dark skin glowed with what Andy could only assume was the immortality. 

“You just need to moisturize,” Nile said, mouth tilting. “Skin care has come a long way since Scythia was a place.” Nile thought she was funny as shit, and Andy liked her enough that she smiled, even if she wasn’t. 

Andy didn’t just like her _enough_.

And she had grey hair already, six months into her mortal life. She pushed away from the sink and crossed what passed for a bathroom in the old fishing cabin in two strides, the plank floor rough under her bare feet. Nile looked up at her as she got close, a flicker of uncertainty in her expression, like she couldn’t quite get Andy’s measure—as if she could ever comprehend the thousands of years that lived and faded in Andy’s memory.

Those memories would fade quicker now as Andy faded, her mind failing her as time passed. If she lived that long. 

She sucked in a sharp breath and put her hand on the doorframe not far from Nile’s head. She leaned in just a little. “What do you want to do today?”

Nile didn’t budge. “Well, let’s see. I already took a shit in a spider-infested outhouse this morning, which I always enjoy, and the last few days we’ve sat around in the sun, walked around the lake, and sat around some more, so… sky’s the limit, I guess. We could track down some food, since we’re going full back-to-nature.”

“If you wanted the finer things in life, you should’ve gone with Nicky and Joe,” Andy said. 

“If I wanted the finer things in life, I would’ve joined the Coast Guard,” Nile shot back. When Andy just looked at her blankly, her mouth twitched. “Never mind. I wanted to come with you. This is the World Tour of Andy’s Hidey-Holes. How could I pass that up?”

Andy relaxed a little, pleased at the reassurance. It wasn’t the first she’d received it on this trip, and it probably wouldn’t be the last she’d seek it out. She wanted Nile’s tilted grins and the sun on their faces to fill her new mortality. She wanted to know that _this_ was where Nile wanted most to be.

*

Summers in the lakes of Manitoba were warm, dry, and short, and Andy loved them. She’d lost her original accent over the millennia. It mutated and evolved wherever she went, and Canada had shaped it these last few centuries. 

They fished from the rowboat she’d scavenged from another abandoned camp on the lake, and even though it didn’t leak too badly, by late morning, their feet were wet.

“You might need a new boat,” Nile said, trying to get comfortable on the old bench seat, lying back with her head pillowed on her jacket against the gunwale. She kicked off her damp shoes and wriggled her bare toes against the opposite side, fishing pole upright on her stomach.

“I won’t need a new boat,” Andy said, and the slight emphasis she placed on _I_ drew Nile’s gaze. Her brows sank together the way they always did when Andy talked about or referenced dying.

“Well, _I_ am not coming back here without you, so I guess neither of us needs a new boat. This is pretty, yeah, but I wouldn’t want this much solitude or water.”

“You say that now, but wait a few centuries and you might need a break from humanity.”

“Yeah.” Nile nodded and seemed to consider Andy’s words carefully. “I would’ve thought you’d get tired of roughing it, though, and have, like, penthouses and chalets all over the place. Booker’s been managing the money since the start of the New York Stock Exchange—you could be set up better.”

“Disappointed?” Andy watched her. Since they’d left Joe and Nicky in Malta, she’d done nothing but watch Nile. 

“Not really.” She looked over at Andy, just like _she’d_ done since they left Joe and Nicky. “You have yet to disappoint me, Andy.”

That sat between them in the hot August morning, and even though she should know what to do with it, she really had no fucking idea. Not now that she was dying. Everything was different. Everything was _more_. 

Luckily, her pole jerked in her hands, hard enough that she almost lost her grip on it, distracted as she was. “Oh, shit,” she said with a laugh, pushing to her feet and yanking back on the pole. 

“Oh, shit,” Nile echoed. She lurched upright on her seat. “What do I do?”

“Get the net, obviously,” Andy said, reeling hard. It was a monster—probably a pike. Definitely not her favorite.

“Nuh-uh, that’s bigger than the others, I can tell. I don’t wanna touch it!”

“You were a US Marine,” Andy reminded her.

“I would rather eat bugs than touch that fish,” she said with absolute certainty.

“Don’t be a wuss.” That was when she saw the fish flash in the water—a massive pike just like she thought, and when she hauled it out, its smell smacked her in the face.

“Oh gross, put it back—put it back!” Nile yelled, noisier than Andy’d ever heard. She jumped up onto the seat like it was about to flop into the boat

“I’m not putting it back. Grab it with the net!”

“No!” But Nile never got the chance, the fish’s weight snapping the line before she could have reached for it. Still, she was standing on the seat, and when she leaned over the side of the boat, Andy overcorrected her balance for the abrupt loss of the fish fighting on her line. With a startled “Fuck!” she tumbled forward, right out of the tiny boat into the lake. 

The water closed over her head in a cold rush, this ancient glacial lake one of the few things in the world that made Andy feel young. She opened her eyes under water and just managed to grab her pole as it sank, the moment before the percussive sound of another body hitting the water assaulted her ears.

Nile grabbed her like she was drowning, and in the murky light Andy saw her with a watery halo of sunshine behind her head. The dozen or so braids she’d done all over her head floated like seaweed tendrils from the mermaids out of legends.

She broke the surface spitting out lake water. Nile came up cussing. “If that fucking fish touches my legs, I will lose my shit, I swear to God,” she said, still holding Andy firmly around the ribs with one arm and reaching for the side of the boat with the other.

“You were a US Marine,” she said again, “and there is literally nothing that fish can do to you.” She grinned at the side of Nile’s face.

“This is not a combat situation, Andy,” Nile sniped. “And I did not train to swim with or touch nasty prehistoric monster-fish. Which if I had, I would have quit.”

“I can swim, you know. You can let go now,” Andy said, not wanting her to. And Nile didn’t.

“You’re protecting me, too. Help me get back in this stupid boat.” 

“We’re close enough to shore—let’s just swim and pull it,” Andy said, liking the cool of the water. Liking even more Nile’s body alongside hers, slippery and strong. She tossed her pole up over the gunwale and grabbed for the tie rope at the bow. 

“No, Andy, come on. There are giant fish in this lake. Humans were not meant to be in this lake. A Black girl from Chicago, especially, is not meant to be in this lake.”

“Oh, I see,” Andy said with mocking gravity. “Then why did you jump in? I’m the oldest person on earth—I know how to swim.” Wrapping the rope around her forearm, she kicked unhurriedly for shore. 

Nile stayed right with her, swimming with a stiff breast stroke. She clearly didn’t like deep water. “I still dream about Quynh sometimes,” she said. “I thought about you under water, and I jumped.”

That plunged the temperature of the lake another twenty degrees. The weight of her still lived in Andy’s chest, heavy as iron or the choking depths of the ocean. And for a moment, her lungs were full, her body burning for oxygen. She closed her eyes and stopped kicking—until Nile’s hand slid into hers. They treaded water together in silence until Andy took a deep breath and could stand to look over at her.

“Are you sorry you asked?” Nile said quietly, her voice strange and close between the surface of the water and the boat hull. 

“No,” Andy answered. “You saved me. I’m not sorry.”

“Good.” Nile’s mouth twitched. “If there are fish touching my legs right now and not weeds, you’re gonna have to save me.”

Andy looked down at the deep green forest of weeds reaching for the sunlight, swaying gently between their legs. She looked back up at Nile, who kept her eyes determinedly on Andy’s face. “Good to finally know what you’re afraid of,” Andy said with a smirk.

“I’ll get over it eventually,” Nile said, “but today is not that day.”

*

The cabin had just enough power to run a refrigerator, a stovetop, and a couple lamps to sit by at night. Andy still preferred liquor for sitting by lamps at night, even though her tolerance was shit these days. Improving it was not a priority. Or more accurately, Andy would not let herself make it a priority.

She worried about Book and his priorities, then told herself to stop. Nothing she could do from here.

“We’ll need to head into town tomorrow for supplies,” she said. “Since we didn’t catch anything today.” She shot a look at Nile across the table, and Nile rolled her eyes. 

“We could just keep moving. How long did you plan on staying here?”

“Are you ready to leave?” Andy asked.

Nile waited and looked a long time before answering. “I don’t know. Why should we stay?”

Andy sipped on her vodka and said, “I don’t really give a shit where we go. It’s quiet here, and I like the quiet. But I like you more. If you’re ready to move on, we can.” She met Nile’s steady, dark gaze across the table, and her pulse kicked, flushing her skin with warmth. Funny how her encroaching death made her fearless. Gone were the centuries to regret her decisions.

Nile’s fingers twitched against the painted table-top, her ring finger tapping repeatedly the only sign that she might be nervous.

With the liquor sitting warm in her belly, Andy slid from her chair down to her knees, and with her long reach, she grabbed the leg of Nile’s chair just behind her calf. She tugged and the chair skidded noisily across the floor, Nile’s sharp indrawn breath just audible.

Andy’s hands hovered above Nile’s thighs as she looked up, waiting to touch. Nile bit her lip and nodded, though to what exactly, Andy wasn’t sure yet. 

“You’re gonna break my heart, aren’t you,” Nile said quietly.

“Maybe.” Andy ghosted her hands from Nile’s thighs up to her hips. “If I’m very, very lucky. You’re young—you’ll get over it.”

“And you won’t have to, right?” Nile’s brows pinched. “That’s not fair.”

“Welcome to immortality, kid.” She tugged, and Nile came easily, slipping off the chair and into Andy’s lap, straddling her legs and reaching for the back of her neck.

Andy’s knees protested and she grunted. “Fuck—bed. Bed. I’m too old for this floor shit.”

Laughing out loud, Nile backed off her and stood in one enviably smooth motion. Then she reached down for Andy’s hands, lifted her to her feet, and pulled her into the bedroom.

*

The dim light from the main room of the cabin barely carried into the bedroom, but Andy couldn’t bring herself to let go of Nile long enough to fumble for the bedside lamp. She peeled up Nile’s shirt, got her hands on the solid width of her ribcage, and followed her down onto the bed, climbing over her with a soft exhalation as Nile lifted her knees to grip Andy’s sides. 

Her eyes adjusted, though, to reveal the glint of deep brown skin beneath her hands and a no-nonsense black bra. She looked up and caught Nile’s expression as she pillowed her head on her arm to keep Andy in her line of sight. It was the kind of eye contact she’d made on that plane over from Afghanistan, right after she’d cracked Andy in the mouth twice.

Andy’d thought about kissing her then, too. 

However, unlike that time, Nile could still back away from this. “Want me to stop?” Andy asked. “We can pack up and head out tomorrow and I won’t say anything ever again.” It wouldn’t kill her—one of the few things that couldn’t.

“I want you to come here,” Nile said softly and with conviction.

Andy lowered herself until she felt Nile’s stomach gently press up against hers as she inhaled, then held herself there. “Yes, sir,” she said.

Nile smirked. “Nice flex.”

“Thank you,” Andy said and let her weight pin Nile to the bed. The insides of Nile’s arms felt like fire as she wrapped them tightly around Andy’s ribs and they kissed for the first time. Andy smiled into it and reached for Nile’s hand, slotted their fingers together, and pressed their hands above her head.

“How long has it been for you?” Nile asked into the kiss, her free hand tugging Andy’s shirt from the waist of her jeans to skate up her spine.

Leaning up, Andy shrugged out of it, leaving herself bare. She hadn’t been wearing a bra. “That’s a personal question,” she said. 

“I’m just betting it’s been years since anyone ate you out.” Nile wriggled down underneath her just enough to get a nipple in her mouth. She sucked hard enough that Andy hissed.

“You would win that bet,” she said roughly. “You didn’t actually make that bet with anyone, right?”

She felt Nile smile, mouth on her breast. “None of the others would take it,” she said.

Andy huffed, working her thigh between Nile’s and grinding against her. She could only stare as Nile groaned at the friction and pressed her head back, arching her neck. 

“I was too fucking tired,” she said, fingers tracing down the smooth expanse of Nile’s stomach to the fly of her jeans. When she’d thumbed the button open and pushed her hand inside to cup the bristly heat of her, she shut her eyes and said, “I think I’ve been waiting for you.”

Nile sucked in a short breath as Andy slid her middle two fingers through the slick heat of her cunt, teasing her entrance. “Andy,” she said unsteadily, just the way Andy needed to hear her name. She moved to cover Nile with her body again, rocking her hips against her hand, which moved against Nile with the same rhythm. 

There was a time when she’d been worshiped as a god. She’d long forgotten the feel of it, but this… this was fucking close.

*

Nile came twice on Andy’s fingers—once with a nearly inaudible sigh, then again a few moments later with a tight moan and tremors in her body that shook the bed—and for those moments, Andy was invincible again, even as her own muscles trembled with the fatigue of holding herself up for so long.

When she’d come down from that second one, Nile stripped them both to their skin and rolled Andy under her. The nomad in Andy tensed and Nile hesitated. Even though they’d traveled together and moved through places without running water, they’d found moments of privacy to bath and change clothes, always staggered, one of them on watch. They hadn’t seen each other completely naked before, and the vulnerability of it stared Andy right in the face. She hadn’t done this is years—she didn’t want to count how many.

Then she took a deep breath and relaxed as Nile soothed her with firm touches and biting kisses to the undersides of her breasts. She sank down between Andy’s legs, mouth inching downward to the thatch of black curls at Andy’s core—a thicket as dense as that fairytale about the sleeping princess. Did that make her the princess and Nile the prince?

As she smiled at the ceiling, the swipe of Nile’s tongue over her clit startled a moan out of her and she bucked her hips. “Oh, god,” she said by reflex, then clamped her teeth shut. 

It was too late, though. Nile looked up at her from between her legs, lips quirking in a grin. “What was that?” she asked and wiped her mouth.

“‘Oh, fuck’ is what I said.”

“Uh-huh, all right.” 

Nile didn’t give her any more shit about that, but she expected it at some point soon. She licked her way back inside, and Andy hissed at the intimacy of it. This was why she didn’t do this shit anymore. Nile’s mouth on her was so good, it was nearly intolerable. Andy couldn’t imagine letting anyone else get this far inside her. It’d been since she and Book had gotten deliberately trashed and fucked that she’d allowed anyone this close. And she didn't talk to him for five years after that. It was a mission in Nicaragua that had finally brought them back together, and they’d still never discussed it. 

Andy was not doing that this time.

Her hands fisted in the sleeping bag on top of the mattress, and her heels dug in, opening her knees wider. Nile moaned against her and wrapped her arm the whole way around Andy’s leg, digging her fingers into the meat of Andy’s inner thigh.

She’d gotten herself good and wound up fucking Nile on her fingers—she was already close, and Nile eating her out like she knew just what to do wound her that much tighter. 

With her free hand, Nile slid two fingers inside and jacked her off with a shallow, quick rhythm, her tongue flickering over Andy’s clit with just that perfect pressure. “Oh, fuck— _Nile_.” It was almost a shout, and the double stimulation from her mouth and fingers pitched Andy over the edge without warning or grace. She flung her arm across her eyes to hide her face as she rode it out, trapping wild noises in her throat before they could come out.

When she could finally string a thought together, she lifted her arm away from her face and found Nile sitting between her legs, fingers just touching her lips.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Andy said, flopping her arm open in an invitation Nile readily accepted. She settled next to Andy with her neck resting against Andy’s arm. Turned sideways, she curled around Andy and kissed her jaw.

“Wasn’t sure if there’d be cobwebs down there or not,” she said with a smirk in her voice. 

A laugh burst from Andy’s chest, and she quickly rolled to pin Nile beneath her. “That’s it, I’m telling you about every famous person I ever fucked, in pornographic detail every night from here on out. Every artist, every singer. You’re in for it.”

“I look forward to it,” Nile said. “I love Antiques Roadshow.”

Andy laughed again for the joy of it, and Nile joined in.

When Nile had pulled the edge of the sleeping bag over to cover them, she hooked her arm across Andy’s chest and said, “From here on out, huh? That could be a long time.”

Andy blew out a breath. “I hope so.”

Nile’s arm tightened. “Me too.”

/But you remind me  
It’s such a wonderful thing to love  
It’s such a wonderful thing to love/

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics are from "Patricia" by Florence and the Machine, and yes, I used the lyrics at the end of an MCU fic. They just work for me <3
> 
> [Tumblr!](https://itstartledme.tumblr.com/)


End file.
